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I'm in #earthbound as I type this. I'm going to copy some of my comments into this article, because I can't remember what I said. See, I was "singing" a song by typing out the lyrics. I sang 'cuz all the "Back-in-tha-day" people were talking, and I couldn't get a word in edgewise. It seemed as though all those people hated me. It feels like there's a big gap between the new people (like me) and the older people (in this case, it's Tomato.) When someone asked Tomato if he was back from Japan, I typed "Nah, he came back..." Take a good look at that. I typed "he" like Tomato's some kind of god. People treat guys like reidman and Tomato as if they're beyond us. It's a real task to get seen by the senior people around here, that's why we all try so hard. Oh, I'm sure they're really busy with the site and all that. But a lot of people don't seem to show up too often, either on the forums, in #earthbound, or simply in name as a submittor of something.

Therefore, in the interest of equalizing things for once in a lifetime, I want to offer an open challenge to everyone involved in any way with Starmen.Net. Get into #earthbound, and chat. Just chat there. Read the topic, and say "hi" to everyone who comes in, whether you know them or not. If you have other channels on your autolist - and I know some of you do, because I've seen screenshots of people with TEN FREAKIN' CHANNELS (or more) - close them. If you've never chatted before, start. Just hang out with whoever you see in #earthbound and get back in touch with everyone. Don't try to do more than one thing while you're chatting, either. Listening to music or something is fine, but don't go remodeling your section or rewriting your fanfic; pay attention. I know you probably don't have much free time, but if you can just find a half hour, or maybe even fifteen minutes, spend it in #earthbound. There's no specific meeting time, just go in and chill out.

What will this achieve, you say? Well, imagine if all the best rock musicians - people who only occasionally meet and talk to each other - had the chance to talk in an environment where nobody could be considered better than anyone. That's almost what we have, but it gets messed up because some people use away scripts, or don't even show up at all. That's giving the impression that they're too busy to bother chatting, even though they could if they wanted to. Which leads to the second part of my challenge: If you're in #earthbound, chat. If not, quit. Don't leave a lousy away script saying "I LIKE JELLO - SupaFunkayAwayScriptCuzYouSux0rz." Start your chat program, whatever it is you use, chat for a while, and when you stop chatting, quit. How long does it take for you to start up the chat, anyhow? It takes a couple of seconds. Are you going to miss anything? Of course not. Do you tell your friends to tape record their conversations so you can listen to them later?

I wanted to end this challenge with a touching personal message about how we should do this because we're proud of being part of such a great website, except I think Buzz-Buzz tried that, and look where he is now. Well, at least I'm not stalking anyone. Take the challenge, and we'll see what happens.

Keep this in mind for later on: If you took the challenge and wanted to tell me what happened, you could e-mail me, or just find me in #earthbound.